Assessing the Complexity of Literacy Tasks
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Age amount

6. Age Amount

According to the text on line 6 of the first page, there are two conditions to be met (age and income) in order to claim a tax credit for age. The form-filler approaches this task with some ‘given’ information about his or her income and age. The task is then to answer a question such as: “If I am 66 years old and my net earnings are less than $20,000 a year, can I claim an age amount?” There are two conditions to meet, so the form-filler will have to cycle to pick up the phrases 65 or over and under $25,921. He or she can then compare, or integrate, given information about age and income with the conditions in the text. Because this is an isolated bit of text intended to help the respondent navigate the form, we will rate the ‘type of match’ on the document processing rubric. The essential task is an integration (3); which compares (+0); two features (+1); one item response (+0); given is a literal match (+0); no new frame for requested (+0); total rating of 4. The type of information requested is an action, rated at 2. Gross income is a distractor for the ‘given’ net income information.

Type
Document

Level
2

ToI
2

ToM
4

PoD
2

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